Chin to Appeal, Seeks New Lawyer

By Walter F. Roche Jr.

A former pharmacist convicted of racketeering and mail fraud charges has filed notice of appeal and wants the government to pay for a new lawyer to represent him in that effort.
Glenn Chin, 49, filed the notices today in U.S. District Court in Boston, Mass. He is already serving an eight year sentence at a federal prison in Pennsylvania.
In a related development federal prosecutors filed an 11-page brief opposing the move by a codefendant to have his trial severed from eight other codefendants.
Chin and 13 others were indicted in late 2014 following a two year probe of the 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak which took the lives of at least 76 patients in 20 states. All 14 defendants were affiliated were affiliated with the now defunct New England Compounding Center and and a relate sales company. NECC caused the outbreak by distributing fungus riddled drugs to health providers.
Chin's notice states that he plans to appeal his guilty verdict, the sentence imposed and a forfeiture order imposed by U.S. District Judge Richard G. Stearns.
Chin, who has been represented by Stephen Weymouth, also said he is seeking a new government-paid lawyer to represent him.
The government motion filed today opposes a motion by former NECC Vice President Gregory Conigliaro to have his upcoming trial separated from the other eight remaining defendants. Conigliaro is charged with conspiring to defraud the U.S. Food and Drug Administration by falsely claiming that NECC was operating as a state regulated pharmacy and not a drug manufacturer under FDA jurisdiction.
Federal prosecutors George Varghese and Amanda Strachan wrote that severance was not warranted. While Conigliaro is not charged in as many counts as the others he is "not less culpable than his codefendants," the filing states.
They also denied that any so-called "prejudicial spillover" would occur because of evidence applying to the other defendants (but not Conigliario) could easily be avoided by instructions to jurors by the presiding judge.
Conigliaro's conduct "is inextricably intertwined with NECC's fraudulent drug production," the filing states.
They argued that jurors could discern the differences between the charges against Conigliaro versus the other defendants.
"This is what jurors do in this courthouse every day," they wrote.
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